sigdiamond2000:#1: Making you think they can cook a better steak than you can.

Oddly enough, considering that I tend to cook steaks forty or fifty times a night, yeah, I DO think that. Because I have a lot more practice at it.

Steakhouses are machines that produce a commodity, and they sell the concept, and the execution is often shoddy, because many of them take a franchise approach that is just simply a fast food mentality, written onto a menu that is a dang sight pricier, but still it is a franchise, turn and burn approach. Buyer beware.

The list is not a bad one. There are a lot of folks who are willing to sell you crap, and tell you it's manna from Heaven, and they're doing so at a huge markup, and well beyond the usual. There is a reason that you don't visit chains if you want good food: they're not interested in good food, only selling you what they can, at fairly obscene profit margins, and hope that they can stuff you to the gills so you don't realize how badly they've rooked you.

hubiestubert:sigdiamond2000: #1: Making you think they can cook a better steak than you can.

Oddly enough, considering that I tend to cook steaks forty or fifty times a night, yeah, I DO think that. Because I have a lot more practice at it.

Steakhouses are machines that produce a commodity, and they sell the concept, and the execution is often shoddy, because many of them take a franchise approach that is just simply a fast food mentality, written onto a menu that is a dang sight pricier, but still it is a franchise, turn and burn approach. Buyer beware.

The list is not a bad one. There are a lot of folks who are willing to sell you crap, and tell you it's manna from Heaven, and they're doing so at a huge markup, and well beyond the usual. There is a reason that you don't visit chains if you want good food: they're not interested in good food, only selling you what they can, at fairly obscene profit margins, and hope that they can stuff you to the gills so you don't realize how badly they've rooked you.

hubiestubert:There is a reason that you don't visit chains if you want good food:

Bam. *Never* go to farking chains unless forced. And if you do...never order steak. I haven't willingly been to a chain in years. And when I did go, they nuked the fark out of anything that sounded good. NOTE: if you get stuck going to a chain, it's hard to fark up Fettuccine Alfredo...yeah, it's not the greatest and it's probably microwaved Sysco food but at least it's edible.

revrendjim:No, they can get better steaks than you can. They have first pick of the best USDA Prime cuts, and you and I can't buy those (unless you know someone).

Here in Texas, we have HEB who started offering prime cuts last year. It's typically around $13-$14 a pound though it comes down to $9 and sometimes, once in a blue moon, $7. But you can also find good stuff in grocery stores if you know what to look for. Randall's here (Val and Safeway and Tom Thumb for those in other states) will often have decent meat. And if they ever put their uncut roasts on sale, get them and cut your own steaks as the are pretty decent for cheaper steak beef.

And I made myself a sous vide machine. I can get a steak with a perfect crust while also having almost zero transition zone between that crust and the perfectly medium-rare exactly 128 degree interior. It's straight-up cheating. The only trick is finding good beef. And since the wife knows a local rancher who can get us meat from a cow that was never fed corn (and then drugs to digest that corn), it's really no trick at all.

I know it sounds like bravado, and I don't mean to impugn your profession or skills, but I can't get a restaurant steak better than I can make at home, unless I go to one of those places that has vats of constantly-reducing beef stock and a dry-aging room and the like. But like Ruth's Chris or whatever? No comparison whatsoever.

And I made myself a sous vide machine. I can get a steak with a perfect crust while also having almost zero transition zone between that crust and the perfectly medium-rare exactly 128 degree interior. It's straight-up cheating. The only trick is finding good beef. And since the wife knows a local rancher who can get us meat from a cow that was never fed corn (and then drugs to digest that corn), it's really no trick at all.

I know it sounds like bravado, and I don't mean to impugn your profession or skills, but I can't get a restaurant steak better than I can make at home, unless I go to one of those places that has vats of constantly-reducing beef stock and a dry-aging room and the like. But like Ruth's Chris or whatever? No comparison whatsoever.

Oddly enough, I've used sous verde, and I pretty much despise them. Too much time, too much space, and the cook time is a pain in the tochis.

You feel good with your skills, then drive on. I only have 25 years of professional experience to fall back upon for preparation, only a several hundred steaks and other cuts a week, and a merciless public craving both novel and classical preparations to satisfy. And all the while having to concentrate on not just beef, lamb, pork, chicken, sauces, vegetables, salad, pairings for beer, wine and more. Nope. There is no way that I could ever satisfy a gourmand like yourself...

In the meantime, I guess I can continue to be paid for my shameful waste of time...

I'll tell you what. You can get a good look at a butcher's ass by sticking your head up there. But, wouldn't you rather to take his word for it?No, what I mean is, you can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a butcher's ass... No, wait. It's gotta be your bull...

costermonger:My local butcher shop (who already had the best steaks I've found) just renovated to include a dry-aging room. They might as well have hooked a vacuum up to my wallet.

I need to find me your butcher and give him a large percentage of my money. Amazingly the best steak I had this past Summer was frozen mail order, and it wasn't from anywhere near Omaha. It came with a surf and turf package from Maine, it was a boneless strip, perfect thickness, seared well and actually had taste to it.

Around Chicago there are plenty of places to get prime meat. The trick is paying for it, which I have found little enthusiasm for.

Top notch steakhouses often have very high output broilers, ceramic things that can put out 1600 degrees. I don't have access to that at home. Or a sous vide machine.

I can, however, make better chicken than any restaurant I've ever had. I think chicken is far trickier to cook properly than steak anyway. Any moron with a blowtorch can cook steak. Chicken has to be done just right or it's destroyed. So there.

hubiestubert:You feel good with your skills, then drive on. I only have 25 years of professional experience to fall back upon for preparation, only a several hundred steaks and other cuts a week, and a merciless public craving both novel and classical preparations to satisfy. And all the while having to concentrate on not just beef, lamb, pork, chicken, sauces, vegetables, salad, pairings for beer, wine and more. Nope. There is no way that I could ever satisfy a gourmand like yourself...

In the meantime, I guess I can continue to be paid for my shameful waste of time...

Well, that escalated quickly.

We get it - you're an arteest, and the rest of us who lack the appreciation necessary for bagged salad with boiled eggs on top, toast with beans, or roast beast a la heat lamp can go back to our gruel. Which in my case last night, consisted of olive oil poached prawns (from my homemade sous vide rig), leg of lamb with a yogurt and thyme crust (recipe from a Greek grandma), roasted tri-color fingerling potatoes with herbs, locally sourced rustic greens, and flourless chocolate cake with black pepper.

I guess the fact that I didn't cook it for several hundred covers makes it pretty-much inedible, though. I'll let my dinner guests know.

But seriously - I know it takes alot of talent, hard work and discipline to make not only good but also consistent food, time and again, hundreds of times a night. Not everyone can do it, and even fewer can do it well. But don't pretend no one else can cook a steak, that's just pretentious.

Lemme ask you something, chief, have you ever grilled before? Anything at all? Ever? You look befuddled. You wanna flip that one, I'm telling you, you're gonna burn it. They're gonna be like hockey pucks. I'm just sayin'. I used to be a grillmaster at a summer camp and I would consider some sauces. Just sayin'.

Girl Sailor:Top notch steakhouses often have very high output broilers, ceramic things that can put out 1600 degrees.

Alton Brown had a segment specifically on how to get around this using hardwood coals and a chimney starter to cook a porterhouse steak. I haven't tried it yet, but it seemed legit, and too simple not to give it a shot.

hubiestubert:wee: hubiestubert: Because I have a lot more practice at it

And I made myself a sous vide machine. I can get a steak with a perfect crust while also having almost zero transition zone between that crust and the perfectly medium-rare exactly 128 degree interior. It's straight-up cheating. The only trick is finding good beef. And since the wife knows a local rancher who can get us meat from a cow that was never fed corn (and then drugs to digest that corn), it's really no trick at all.

I know it sounds like bravado, and I don't mean to impugn your profession or skills, but I can't get a restaurant steak better than I can make at home, unless I go to one of those places that has vats of constantly-reducing beef stock and a dry-aging room and the like. But like Ruth's Chris or whatever? No comparison whatsoever.

Oddly enough, I've used sous verde, and I pretty much despise them. Too much time, too much space, and the cook time is a pain in the tochis.

You feel good with your skills, then drive on. I only have 25 years of professional experience to fall back upon for preparation, only a several hundred steaks and other cuts a week, and a merciless public craving both novel and classical preparations to satisfy. And all the while having to concentrate on not just beef, lamb, pork, chicken, sauces, vegetables, salad, pairings for beer, wine and more. Nope. There is no way that I could ever satisfy a gourmand like yourself...

In the meantime, I guess I can continue to be paid for my shameful waste of time...

so you are mass producing a product to the tune of "hundreds a week" and wee can focus on just making his steak for himself and he knows exactly how he likes it and has a repeatable proven method he enjoys. Why should it be a surprise or a perceived jab at your culinary chops that he is better able to satisfy himself (heh)?

Due to time & economic restraints (the burden of a family - yadda-yadda) most of my "steak" comes chopped up on a bun and passed through my car window.The thought of sitting down in a faded-era restaurant and served by well-endowed past-her-prime waitress sounds very appealing to me - even if the grill marks on my utility-grade horse meat was drawn on with a Sharpie.

And I made myself a sous vide machine. I can get a steak with a perfect crust while also having almost zero transition zone between that crust and the perfectly medium-rare exactly 128 degree interior. It's straight-up cheating.

A crust w/ sous vide? bullshiat....unless you somehow created a machine that can superheat water to 400 deg F? I assume you are searing your boiled steak? I'll take a cast iron cooked steak anyday.

/I ran a steakhouse kitchen and was on the grill for years...//I will not buy steak @ a restaurant.

Benevolent Misanthrope:hubiestubert: You feel good with your skills, then drive on. I only have 25 years of professional experience to fall back upon for preparation, only a several hundred steaks and other cuts a week, and a merciless public craving both novel and classical preparations to satisfy. And all the while having to concentrate on not just beef, lamb, pork, chicken, sauces, vegetables, salad, pairings for beer, wine and more. Nope. There is no way that I could ever satisfy a gourmand like yourself...

In the meantime, I guess I can continue to be paid for my shameful waste of time...

Well, that escalated quickly.

We get it - you're an arteest, and the rest of us who lack the appreciation necessary for bagged salad with boiled eggs on top, toast with beans, or roast beast a la heat lamp can go back to our gruel. Which in my case last night, consisted of olive oil poached prawns (from my homemade sous vide rig), leg of lamb with a yogurt and thyme crust (recipe from a Greek grandma), roasted tri-color fingerling potatoes with herbs, locally sourced rustic greens, and flourless chocolate cake with black pepper.

I guess the fact that I didn't cook it for several hundred covers makes it pretty-much inedible, though. I'll let my dinner guests know.

But seriously - I know it takes alot of talent, hard work and discipline to make not only good but also consistent food, time and again, hundreds of times a night. Not everyone can do it, and even fewer can do it well. But don't pretend no one else can cook a steak, that's just pretentious.

Look it up. Restaurants literally use this special glue to make small pieces of meat into steak-like sizes and sell them as such.

Meat Glue. Think about that for a moment. Taking the farking piss, as we say in UK-land.

It's nothing new, especially if you've ever eaten imitation crab (it's used in lots of other things). It's only now becoming more well-known because of travel and cooking shows where they may show a chef taking a thin slice of duck, a slice of pork, and a slice of beef and glueing them into a single "steak".